By Taurai Craig Museka

By any measure, the African Trade & Investment Development Insurance Agency (ATIDI) has become one of Africa’s most important financial institutions. Established to mitigate political, credit, and investment risks, ATIDI has evolved into a central pillar of the continent’s trade and infrastructure finance ecosystem.

Yet a closer look at ATIDI’s 2024 project support data raises an uncomfortable question for Southern Africa: is the region fully using the risk-mitigation capacity available to it?

A regional imbalance

In 2024, ATIDI-supported projects were distributed unevenly across Africa. West Africa accounted for approximately USD 12 billion across ten member states, while Eastern Africa recorded USD 9.8 billion across seven members. Central Africa supported USD 1.4 billion across three members. Southern Africa, by contrast, reached USD 3.1 billion across five member states.

When adjusted on a per-member basis, the gap becomes clear. Southern Africa averages roughly USD 620 million per member state, less than half of Eastern Africa’s level and well below West Africa’s performance.

For a region with relatively developed financial markets, strong banking systems, and substantial infrastructure needs, this underperformance is striking.

The missing anchor: South Africa

Any serious analysis of Southern Africa’s ATIDI utilisation must begin with a structural reality: the region’s largest economy, South Africa, is not an ATIDI member state.

This omission matters. South Africa accounts for the majority of Southern Africa’s GDP, industrial output, capital market activity, and cross-border investment flows. Its absence significantly distorts regional utilisation figures.

As a result, ATIDI’s Southern African portfolio reflects the activity of smaller economies such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, rather than the full economic weight of the SADC region.

In practical terms, Southern Africa’s apparent underperformance is partly a function of who is not participating.

Why South Africa remains outside

South Africa’s non-membership is not a rejection of risk mitigation instruments. Rather, it reflects long-standing institutional and market structures.

The country has historically relied on a mature domestic ecosystem comprising deep capital markets, established insurers, and national export credit mechanisms. These institutions have traditionally reduced the perceived need to participate in regional risk-pooling platforms.

There is also partial mandate overlap. ATIDI’s core offerings, political risk insurance, credit insurance, and guarantees, intersect with South Africa’s domestic and private-market solutions. From a policy perspective, this has encouraged reliance on national mechanisms rather than regional ones.

While this approach has delivered scale and global reach, it has also limited South Africa’s engagement with continental risk-sharing initiatives.

South Africa’s mature credit insurance market

South Africa’s position is further shaped by the depth of its domestic credit and political risk insurance market.

The country hosts regional operations of major global credit insurers, including Allianz Trade, Coface, and Atradius. These are complemented by a well-established national export credit agency, the Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa (ECIC), and a sophisticated banking sector with strong trade finance capabilities.

Together, these institutions provide South African corporates and lenders with access to trade credit cover, political risk insurance, and investment guarantees that remain unavailable in much of the region.

This ecosystem has reduced South Africa’s dependence on regional risk-pooling mechanisms. For many firms, sovereign and counterparty risks can already be managed through domestic or private market channels.

However, this strength has had unintended regional consequences. While South Africa has developed robust national capacity, it has remained largely disconnected from Africa’s collective risk-sharing architecture. The result is a fragmented system, in which the region’s largest economy operates through mature private markets while neighbouring countries depend more heavily on multilateral support.

A growing paradox: Global capital is leaning in

At the same time, ATIDI has attracted increasing interest from outside Africa. In recent years, countries such as Japan and Germany have become shareholders in the institution.

Germany’s investment, in particular, has been framed as a strategic effort to mobilise private capital into African infrastructure and industrial projects through credible risk mitigation. Japan has similarly engaged ATIDI through partnerships aimed at supporting its companies’ investments in Africa.

These moves reflect growing confidence in ATIDI’s governance, underwriting capacity, and strategic relevance. For global investors, backing ATIDI is an efficient way to access African opportunities while managing political and sovereign risk exposure.

The contrast is difficult to ignore. External capital is increasingly positioning itself through ATIDI, even as Southern Africa’s largest economy remains outside the framework.

Reframing Southern Africa’s performance

This context demands a more nuanced interpretation of the data. Southern Africa’s lower ATIDI utilisation does not necessarily indicate weak demand for risk mitigation. Instead, it reflects a structural participation gap.

A more accurate assessment is that Southern Africa’s ATIDI member states under-utilise the institution relative to their peers, while the region’s dominant economy does not participate at all.

This distinction matters. It suggests that improving utilisation is not only about generating more transactions among existing members, but also about strategic alignment at the regional level

What is at stake

Southern Africa faces substantial financing needs in power generation, transport corridors, mining, manufacturing, and regional trade. Many of these projects struggle not because they lack commercial viability, but because political, credit, and sovereign risks raise the cost of capital.

ATIDI’s instruments were designed precisely to address these constraints. Where deployed effectively, they have helped projects reach financial close, lowered borrowing costs, and attracted long-term investment.

Under-utilisation therefore carries real economic costs: delayed infrastructure, constrained trade, and missed opportunities for industrial development.

If South Africa were to reconsider its position, the impact would be immediate. Regional risk capacity would expand, cross-border projects would become easier to structure, and Southern Africa’s utilisation profile would more closely reflect its economic weight.

A regional imperative

As Africa seeks to mobilise both domestic and international capital for development, institutions such as ATIDI will become increasingly central to its financial architecture.

South Africa’s mature credit insurance market is an asset. But unless it is connected more deliberately to continental risk platforms, it risks becoming an island of sophistication in a region that still needs stronger financial bridges.

For now, Southern Africa remains in a paradoxical position: global partners are deepening their engagement with ATIDI, while the region’s largest economy remains on the sidelines.

That is not merely a technical issue. It is a strategic question that policymakers, financiers, and business leaders across Southern Africa can no longer afford to ignore.